Choosing a cordless drill

[IMM]

[Kaiser]

Not if I see you first. Besides I prefer women with brains not thick ones like you.

[IMM]

>> >> >>

[Mark]

Where can you get one of these for £80? ;-)

Mark

[John Rumm]

Best I have seen it is for about 100... You may be able to get the version without roto stop for 80.

[Mark]

The cheapest I can find (including VAT and delivery) is from itslondon at £117.44. Can you remember where you found it for less?

Regards, Mark

[Lobster]

Yes I do find that slightly irritating too - a chisel will tend to rotate slightly as you're hammering away. So do more upmarket machines definitely *not* allow this to happen? Is this a case of 'when is rotary stop NOT rotary stop'?

David

[John Rumm]

There seem to be three classes of performance in this area:

No lock, rotates at will, not much use with a flat chisel bit for cutting a straight line

Locks in fixed position, much better, but may mean holding the drill at an uncomfortable angle to get the bit where you want (often a feature on heavy drills as well!)

Locks in a user selectable position (or at least one of a number of positions), obviously the best option.

I note the "buy two cheap ones" advocates often neglect to mention this... ;-)

[John Rumm]

Lawson HIS are often quite good:

including a 3 jaw add on chuck.

The powertools.co.uk that was mentioned the other day are about the same. Can't see it much cheaper anywhere else at the moment.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Yes - the DeWalt does this. Anything else would be a bore. Standard for me is to lock the chisel horizontal, then rotate the entire drill as required.

Because he never uses any of them. Just a window shopper.

[Lobster]

Ok, so, sounds like my Screwfix jobbie falls into this class then. I thought that 'rotary stop' just meant that my flat chisel would refrain from spinning around at 750rpm... evidently the 0.5rpm which it does in 'chisel mode' doesn't count as rotostop then?!

David

[John Rumm]

Na, it stops driving it round, brakes are an option extra!

[Dave Plowman (News)]

The DeWalt has a choice of latched positions. A clutch which gave an infinitely variable one would be too complicated?

[John Rumm]

Seems to work well enough on the Makita. Having said that I am not sure if it is actually a clutch with truly variable position, or just very finely spaced fixed positions.

(there is a spot on the selector which lets you twist round the bit to the angle you want, you then rotate the selector the final 1/8th turn to the hammer position and it locks in place)

[usenet]

My "cheap one" (a Stayer, possible not 'cheap' now but it was one of the cheapest when I bought it for £80) has both 'rotates at will' and 'Locks in a user selectable position', so cheap doesn't necessarily equate to not having the options.

[Mark]

Thanks. I've ordered one now. Do you get commission? :-)

Mark

[John Rumm]

Yes, but you need to send me a cheque directly ;-)